Two Republicans who once held high elective office in Washington state are urging voters to write-in Evan McMullin, the independent presidential candidate backed by some anti-Trump Republicans. Slade Gordon is a former U.S. Senator and Sam Reed is the former Secretary of State. Reed’s involvement with the McMullin campaign is very ironic, because while Reed was Secretary of State, the Washington legislature passed the law saying write-in votes should not be counted unless the vote-counting equipment suggests a write-in might have won the election. See this story.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
You are wrong regarding the history of counting write-in votes.
The provision with regard to write-ins was first passed in 1995 (Session Law 1995 c 158 s 2). This was later modified in 1999 (Session Law 1999 c 111 s 5), including a provision requiring a write-in to have a filled oval on ballots counted by optical scan equipment, and requiring the total number of write-in votes to be counted and reported.
The great Sam Reed became Secretary of State in 2001.
In 2003 there was an extensive rewrite of the election laws. The write-in provision in RCW 29.62.180 was not changed (Session Law 2003 c 111 s 1502).
in 2004, after the unfortunate SCOTUS decision in ‘California Democratic Party v Jones’, follow-on litigation forced Washington to abandon the blanket primary that Washington voters had enjoyed for much of the State’s history, the Washington legislature passed the dual Pick-A-Party/Top-Two legislation. A misguided Gary Locke vetoed the Top 2 legislation.
Session Law 2004 c 271 s 147, which became law, provided that undervotes should be considered when determining whether write-in votes should be tabulated. This recognizes that some write-in votes might not have the bubble marked, and might be votes for an on-ballot candidate. Session Law 2004 c 271 s 43, which was vetoed, did not include this nuance, but did provide that whether write-in votes were tallied would depend on if it would change the determination of the 2nd qualifying candidate in the Top 2 primary.
Session Law 2005 c 243 s 12 modified the write-in provisions to include overvotes. This undoubtedly was a result of the 2004 gubernatorial election between Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi.
Session Law 2012 c 89 s 4 was a minor cleanup related to PCO.